Unlike your usual bunch of USB watches, Timex Ironman USB Data Link System is not a usb storage on a watch (it only has 31424 bytes of memory). Instead, it is a prime example of geekery (Binary time anyone?). In fact it is advertised as “the watch that thinks it is a PDA”. And unlike other smart watches (notably Casio’s databank), it is not completely ugly and looks relatively normal. The watches even have a dress, sport, and normal version. The ~$70 watch allows you to install apps from your computer via USB. But of course, Almost like everything I buy, it was on sale. It was a steal at $20 from Walmart.

The Hardware

The watch is controlled is mainly controlled by a crown that you can spin (scroll), pull out (edit), and push in (light). It is accompanied by a large start/split button, a mode button and a stop/reset button. The button arrangement is different than your usual watch so it might take a day or 2 to get use to (ex. other watches I have combines the start and stop button instead of the start and split combination). Although after using the watch, I realized that the button arrangement on the Ironman makes much more sense.

The watch uses a proprietary USB connector to connect to the computer. Probably to give it a good water resistant number (100 meters). If you are skeptical, let me tell you first hand that it IS water resistant. I’ve swam with it a few times already. I’ve even heard that some people wears it while having a light scuba diving session. Although if it’s not necessary to wear I wouldn’t risk it. The Connector itself is pretty sturdy and doesn’t seem like it’s going to break. Although it is quiet big. It connects to the bulge on the left side of the watch using a 4 big pins (presumably corresponding to the USB’s 4 transistors).

Although not really a feature the back of the watch has a shiny stainless steel back. It impressed me to see it because I’ve never seen one on  a non-suit watch. And plus, if you are narcissistic you can use it as a mirror. Or if you really need to, you probably can use it as a reflector.

There is also a simple but effective locking “mechanism” in the band so that the watch is more secure. It is a pretty smart design trick and more watches should use it. Presuming it isn’t patented.

The Apps

You can freely develop the apps (known as wrist apps) for the watch or download them from several sources. Apps ranges from games such as Black Jack, Space Invaders, Tetris and Pong, utilities such as counters, metronome, contacts, scheduler and appointment to geekeries such as a scientific calculator. There are even apps that replaces the watch’s time “Time of Day” app. Beside the downloadable apps, there are the usual ones such as countdown (the lowest it could go is 1 minute though), stopwatch with memories, multiple alarms, time zones, and indigo auto-light (known as night mode). Some of the watch’s apps even synchronizes with Microsoft outlook. It’s worth noting that there aren’t much apps out there. But there are a bunch of useful and interesting ones.

The watch also allocates how much memory a certain app can use. For example you could allocate more room so you can add more appointments, alarms and more memories for the stopwatch. Ex. from 200 laps memories to 250 laps. So this is probably one of the most customizable watch yet.

You can also add entries to contacts and appointments etc. on the fly so you don’t always need a computer with you. Although it is probably easier to add stuff on the computer because spinning the crown isn’t always the most practical way to type.

The watch also comes with a personal tracker that probably uses the watch lap memories. I’m not sure because I don’t use it. Although from what I’ve seen, it is not the greatest thing. And no, I don’t use it not because I’m a couch potato.

My Favorite Wrist Apps

The UI of the “Time of Day” screen is not the greatest looking one. It doesn’t even use the whole available screen. If you’re going to buy or if you have this watch I suggest you get the “My Watch” wrist app. The app allows you to use a bigger and custom font (not font files such as .TTF). The fonts are drawn inside the application. But don’t worry, you can download the special fonts if you’re lazy). The app looks multiple times better than the factory one. The bad thing about this app is that it can’t replace the watch’s Time of Day screen. So you will have to switch to it manually (but it won’t revert so it’s not a big deal).

Probably one of the most useful ones beside the My Watch app is the “SciCalc” apps. It does what the name says, give u a scientific calculator on your watch. Of course it won’t replace a real one, but it is mighty useful if you need to calculate something and don’t have a calculator around. It is also useful in your daily life application because it has a tip calculator, and converters.

Not all the apps are serious though. There are a few good games. Some fine examples are like I said earlier, Tetris, Paddle (Pong), Black Jack, and invaders. The Tetris is a bit different that your normal Tetris because of the layout of the screen. But not to undermine anything, it is a fully working and fun game to play. Although the block does fall sideway so you probably have to take of your watch. But probably the best game to play on it is Paddle. It is simple to start and control. The goal is to get to 5 before the computer. But don’t take that lightly. It is a hard game to beat. The AI is pretty smart.

The Achilles Heel

Unlike other watches which are advertised as being able to run on a battery for 10 years, this watch’s Achilles heel is probably its battery life. It’s rated between 1-2 years. So if you don’t like changing watches so much this watch is not for you. Also note that a lot of watches are ruined because they didn’t change the battery properly. So you might want to be careful when changing the watch’s battery. The watch uses CR-2025 which are not the cheapest battery ever. It goes for about ~$1. Of course, your mileage may vary.

Verdict

Timex Ironman USB Data Link System, I dub thee a geek’s watch. If you have some money to spare and like customizing things, I recommend this watch for you. Especially if you use Outlook to keep track of things. Even if you’re not in the technical know how, this watch is simple to use and easy to customize. Although if you’re the lazy guy, i wouldn’t buy this watch. Although it doesn’t take much effort to add stuff into the watch, the watch itself is probably not worth it if you’re not going to customize it. But overall this is a good buy whether you are a geek, a businessman, or an athlete.

Links for Wrist Apps

• MyWatch
• SciCalc, Calendar
• Wristapp Database and Help
• Simple SoundSet (To change tones)
• More pictures

Yes, we are finally live. After grueling hours and hours of painful coding, we are finished (or at least to my knowledge, comment if you find any bugs please, it would be much appreciated). How do you like it? Sorry the theme is going dark again. So if you’re a printing guy or some geek, you probably can tell what inspired the theme. For those who can’t tell, it’s inspired by CYMK. You know the new (sorta) RGB? But where is the “K” (black) you ask? Well after much consideration I decided that black is too common and won’t leave as a big impression. I chose brown even though there are several websites in brown because I wanted to keep the coloring dark as not to burn your eyes out. And plus it reminds you of, brownies, chocolates, cookies and all those good stuff.

Framework?

Although you can’t tell that well, but this is my first work that uses a grid framework (as in you can’t tell it uses a grid). Specifically the 960gs. Obviously it is not gridded very well because I started off bad. I didn’t know they had a template, so I just eyeballed the .PSD which resulted in a messed up gridding. Note to self, read the info on the framework before jumping into Photoshop and making more work later.

The Typography

The theme is also using Trebuchet MS because I think Arial & Helvetica are too common and I wanted to try something different. And I was also feeling a bit adventurous, like always. If you’re like me, and want to try, this is a great place to start. Or if you like more tabular things, this one will show the fonts availability tabularly.

Compatibility

Sadly, the site is no longer for great justice.  Don’t get me wrong, I am all for banishment of IE6 and it’s unstandard-ness. So far I’ve tested the website to look good (or at least ok) in the following browser.

• Firefox 3
• Safari3
• Opera 9.5
• IE 6
• IE 7

I know there is a bug in the comment system for IE (backgrounds disappear and appears). I couldn’t find the it, so maybe one of you web gurus can help me out. I have yet to test on IE 7 because currently my computer only have IE 6 right now. I hope it looks fine there. Sorry for the inconvenience. You should be switching to Firefox 3 anyhow Save us designer from headaches and our computers from our rage!

So post your thoughts and comments below

To tell you the truth, I wasn’t very satisfied with the current design I’ve set up a couple month ago. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned a lot, and It was good practice. But I think it’s a bit cramped and constricted.

Unlike this version, the new theme won’t be as 800×600 friendly. But I think it’ll be ok because more and more designer have stopped using that as the standard and moved on to 1024×798 as the screen size to design around. So here’s to a lot more cans of hydration and snacks to get me through the coding.

For those unfamiliar on February 2009, analog tv will no longer work and you will need either a digital tv or a converter box. Thankfully the US Gov. has set up a program that will let you get a discount of $40 toward a converter box. So I decided to sign up and I got 2 $40 coupon for a DTV converter from the government, presumably from the 100s of dollar we pay to tax. The real price was $59 but with the $40 coupon it was obviously $19. But after tax, the total cost ended up at ~$25. So in the end a portion of their gift was sent back to them. But I digress, So here is a simple video of the un-boxing narrated by ATT Labs text to voice for bonus nerd points.

The Setup

So the setup was quite simple. They give you a quick start guide and a full manual. You will need a basic rabbit ear antenna. They give you all the needed cable. You have your choice of coaxial or RCA. If I were you I would use the RCA one, rumor and logic has it that it works better. Right after setting up it will automatically search for channel. I substantially got more channel but sadly lost one, ABC. Although mileage may vary.

The Remote

A remote and the required also comes in the box. The remote is simple to use and easy enough to use without a manual. Except for its “TV Power” button. I had to read the manual to learn how to program it, but it was quite easy to program. All you have to do is press the button and press the channel up button until your TV turns on and that’s it. No need for silly number codes. It takes a while to get use to though. I keep forgetting to turn off one of the other when I started using it.

The Features

The box has a power and a channel button on its face and that’s about it. Most of the features are easily controlled using the buttons on the remote. The box has an on screen signal guide that can help you adjust your antenna for the most optimal signalage. The signal guide also produces beeps that will help you hear the signal if for some reason you can’t see your TV screen, like if your antenna is on your roof.

There is also the SAP button to change language (English/Spanish). There is the zoom button that changes the ratio/ size of the tv broadcast relative to your TV (cropped /squeezed /set by program/Letter Box / Program) I personally prefer cropped because I like to use all of my screen real estate. There is the display button that shows you current channel, date, time, programming details, and much more. Then there is the menu button to set up stuff like your channels, CC settings and blocking system (TV Ratings). There is also a guide button that will show you the current program and the next one for each channel. There is of course the CCD button that will select your Close Captioned settings (CC 1-4, Text 1-4, Service 1-6).

Complaints

One of the few complaints I have so far is that Changing channel lags almost for about a second which makes channel surfing almost impossible or annoying. I don’t know if this happens to all Digital converter box, but I sure don’t like it. Thankfully there is the guide button that can most of the time substitute for it. But sometimes I still like to do things the ol’ fashion way because you should never judge a program by its title. Right?

The sound is also really small. I had to pump up my TV’s volume to hear the sound. Other buyers also complains on this. So if your TV can’t increase the volume much, this converter isn’t for you.

Another minor complaint is I would like a button that turns off everything. I mean it’s not often that you will turn off your box without turning off your TV. I don’t know if that is technically possible to do simultaneously without adding another sensor, but I wouldn’t mind if it sends the signal right after each other.

Final Judgment

If you’re budget conscious or living frugally, you might want to hold off a little longer on ordering the coupon and wait until converters get even cheaper. For those who don’t mind adopting early I would consider buying and start enjoying the benefits of DTV. This box serves its purpose well enough to keep. It’s not the best certainly, but it works.

If you’re considering another converter, I suggest making sure that it has an RCA output. Also consider sticking with internet TV services like hulu, joost, bittorrent, or channels specific site. Like I said in my last post, currently I have an old computer running on Puppy linux to stream Hulu in my dinning room.

I give it a 7/10. Just average, not poor, nor excelling.

• Another Unboxing [Video]
• Another Review [Video]
  
• Another Review [Cnet]
• Pictures of it and its guts
• Official Site

So here is another frustrating, fun and challenging adventure I undertook. The goal of the project is to use an old laptop (Pentium III, 64mb ram) to create a good enough system that can serve as a portable internet tv. In other words, a box capable of running macromedia flash with sound, and do it wirelessly. Sounds simple enough right? Not when you have an old system.

So the choice of distribution (because of their superiority on old computers) was either DSL (Damn Small Linux) or Puppy Linux. The option of xubuntu has been ruled out because it seems to be less compatible than the above 2 (by that I mean, I can’t even install it, it get stuck on downloading a lib and complains it can’t read the disk. Yes I checked that the disc is working). So after burning many cds, approx. 5, on different distribution (live, installation only, messed up, etc.) I was finally able to get it to work. But not without many problems and lessons along the way.

The problem are as follows…

• Started with Puppy 3.01 with wireless and flash from another adventure but without sound.
• Installed DSL and got sound, but no flash (no wireless setup yet).
• Reinstalled Puppy 4.0 got sound and flash, but couldn’t get wireless. (note: Puppy comes with flash installed)
• Installed DSL and got sound and wireless, but no flash. I learned that flash is practically non working on DSL because it doesn’t have GTK2 unless installed as an addon. The addon for some reason didn’t work for me.
• Installed DSL-N. DSL-N is a branch of DSL that supports GTK2 which in turn allows GTK2 flavor of firefox which allowed flash. So I’ve got flash and sound finally working under DSL-N. The bad thing is that flash crashed firefox in about 3 seconds. So that was no good. Back to headache.
• Finally installed Puppy 4.0 again nd got flash and sound and after hours and hours of work wireless again. Apparently if I understand correctly the new Puppy distribution turned off pcmcia by default.

  

So That was it in a nutshell. Now a semi-tut for those who is having some of the trouble like me. Whether it is no sound in puppy, or not being able to enable your wireless card. So if sound is not working (it says nothing detected) after you tried using the “setup > ALSA Sound Wizard”Try running terminal and running

modprobe snd-trident

If wireless/ndiswrapper is not working, try running

modprobe yenta-socket

Then you can go about setting up your wireless like usual. Here is some tutorial that might help to install a network card (I used a Belkin. Model: F5D7010) on puppy linux. I know the second one is for Ubuntu, but it is the samething more or less. You just need some common sense (hint: Puppy doesn’t use sudo at all. Just omit it).

Once I got my wireless card on, I used Puppy’s built in network manager. Note: I’m using WPA security for my wireless. If you’re like me and you need to connect to a WPA protected router, follow this tutorial (same as the first link above). Now unlike him though, I like to start my wpa internet on boot. I’m not sure if this will break it if I’m not in range with my router. I haven’t tried it yet. so what I did was open “etc/rc.d/” and copied added a little script under line 299, or right below the “check_status” $status of network

#setup wireless…
echo -n “Setting up wireless…” >/dev/console
##v2.14 run rc.network as a backgrounded process, idea from ‘joki’… v3.00…
/etc/rc.d/rc.network &
echo -en “\\033[60G${color_green}" >/dev/console #at column 60.
echo -n "[done]” >/dev/console
echo -e “$color_normal” >/dev/console
#check_status $STATUS

And there you have it WPA enabled internet access on Puppy linux’s boot. Good luck!

So a couple of weeks ago was my friend’s birthday. Of course like any cheap frugal artistic person, I decided I was going to make him something. After all anything I buy at the store, he can get himself right? And like they always say, it’s the thought that counts. So a couple weeks before his birthday I found this great tutorial for leaf script. I thought, hey why not try it out?

So like last time, I started by creating a roughly drawn pencil sketch, scan it, then vector it. From there I added some other stuff to make it more exciting, print it out and cut it to size. For extra credit I also framed it with same size cardboard and made it glossy with those food wrapper things.

Below are my work in progress sans sketch.

P.S The pokemon background is by Purplekecleon

So a couple of days ago, I decided my computer was starting to lag too much and I should reinstall it. The original plan was to create a new partition (using my trusty sysresccd which has qtparted. A free hard drive partitioner that can resize ntfs.) on my hard drive to place all my files into and reformat the other partition. Then after reinstalling the OS I would place the file back, then join all the partition back. Sounds great right? On paper it did, but when I went ahead and executed it, a big giant head exploding problem happened. My computer crashed while partitioning. Naturally my first hope was to check if my files was still there, no dice. At that point a part of me died.

Thankfully some of my most important files are up there in the cloud (or servers) on flickr, and on my webspace. If I learned nothing from this accident, believe me, I learned a lot, at least I learned the importance of uploading your files online/backing up your files. Although some were saved through online backups, a lot I wasn’t able to recover. For one, I don’t know how I’m going to get all music files back (is there a way to import mp3s from your mp3 player?). I’ve also lost a bunch of my websites that isn’t online. But what I miss the most is my time laps project. I took a picture of myself for over a month while doing an orthodontic process (maloclusion) and it is all gone. Sure it would’ve been ok, if it was a normal “a picture a day” project. I mean I could have started over. But this, is a once in a lifetime project. I can’t go through the process anymore, so all that is gone. But enough about me.

I know I made a lot of mistakes a long the way that might have prevented me from recovering my file. Probably the most important thing is to not the hard drive as much as you can. If not touching is possible, then don’t. I don’t know if it’s true but I’ve read that all files that was once on your hard drive are still there until they are over written.

So now you’re probably wondering where to begin. One of the first thing I did was install an OS to try and use a program to recover the files. This wasn’t a very smart Idea. Do this when you’ve exhausted the option of using live CD. So what should you do? I contacted Kevin Purdy of Lifehacker to get his opinion (not that I think the other Lifehacker writers are any less technologically inclined than him)

- If your disk really has been borked, you can still get your important data back. Check out Gina’s guide to doing so with a Knoppix CD, or another guide on File Recovery software: http://lifehacker.com/software/disk-recovery/recover-data-from-a-crashed-hard-drive-146386.php http://lifehacker.com/software/notag/geek-to-live–rescue-files-with-a-boot-cd-192982.php Hope I can be of some help!

If you are unlucky as me and still wasn’t able to recover the file, you could try using some recovery software. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea but I installed windows and downloaded Restoration and PCInspector to try and rescue my files. In my experience, PCInspector was able to recover more files but Restoration can be used without installing. So I suggest you try Restoration first of a USB drive or the likes then try PCInspector.

So where did I go from there? Well after being inspired by Kevin’s post on lifehacker I decided to give Ubuntu another try. After all I have nothing to lose, literally. So far I’ve got it nice and running. More on that maybe later. Well good luck to you if you happened to have bad luck like me. P.S If you know how to import mp3s from an mp3 player, please don’t hesitate to comment below.